How safe is safe enough?

Disasters can never be completely ruled out. The Dutch national government has therefore committed itself to the concept of risk rather than the false promise of absolute safety. The objectives of this study were to evaluate current regulatory practices in the domains of industrial and flood safety in the Netherlands, and to formulate proposals for improvement. The outcomes of such an endeavor depend heavily on the chosen yardstick to distinguish between superior and inferior policy alternatives. Throughout the thesis, social improvements are defined in a way that is consistent with the approach followed in societal cost-benefit analyses. The three main topics covered by the thesis are: 1. The Dutch industrial and flood safety policies: underlying rationales, current practices, opportunities for mutual learning. 2. Methods for risk evaluation and their conformity with a utilitarian ethic: cost-benefit analysis, FN-criteria, the precautionary principle. 3. Dealing with losses: optimizing disaster preparedness, the (un)insurability of large-scale floods, the relations between insurance and system safety.Civil Engineering and Geoscience